Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying

The latest Newsweek poll shows the President with a 36% job approval rating. Only 29% of those polled support President Bush’s handling of the Iraq war. Remarkably, 42% of the public supports the censure of the President over the wiretapping program.

These poll numbers, even though they are great news politically for the Democrats, should not give comfort to most citizens. There is almost three years left in this presidency, and a weakened President will not serve the interests of the American people. We need a President who can confidently navigate the treacherous foreign policy waters ahead. A President distracted by internal political worries is playing a very weak hand against challengers such as North Korea or Iran. Our adversaries, and would be adversaries, surely benefit from a President hamstrung by a clear lack of public support.

What is to be done? Should the public get behind the President or should the President get behind the public? First, I think the Administration needs to realize that they are in the midst of a serious crisis of confidence from the American public. Even though the Administration is right to point out that they should not be making decisions based on polls, the situation now has gone well beyond the public mood in one or two isolated polls. It should be obvious to anyone that the President has lost his mandate. It is than incumbent on the President, in a democracy, to respond to the clear will of the governed and adjust rhetoric and actions to regain popular support. The American public has a collective wisdom and the longer the Administration chooses to ignore that wisdom; the greater harm is done to the country, at home and in international affairs.

As this Administration, I hope, begins to recalibrate to regain its mandate, it is the responsibility of the opposition party to not play every retreat for political gain. The stakes are very high for the country and the Democrats need to encourage this Administration to move toward accommodation without playing politics. We will be looking for Statesmen in the years ahead - it is time for true leadership on both sides of the political aisle.

The Washington Post has an article today on an upcoming referendum in Wisconsin on withdrawal from Iraq. Although the referendum will likely fail, it is a sign of the growing polarization of public sentiment over our involvement in Iraq.

Our discourse is increasingly more bitter and more partisan. I think most observers on the right and on the left have now come to the conclusion that the original objectives of the war (finding WMD, bringing a pro western stable democracy, crushing the terrorists, etc.) are not going to be achieved. The discussion has turned now to "pull out now" vs. "pull out later". Even the most strident supporters of the war now define "stay the course" or "complete the mission" as meaning stay long enough to leave with some semblence of our credibility intact so that we can declare "victory" and get out.

It is reasonable to ask how vital our current mission in Iraq is to our national interest. Is it in our interest to stay in the hopes of preventing civil war and watch one happen nonetheless? What will be the role of the U.S. military when civil war breaks out? What will be the result of a quick American pullout? Is our involvement in Iraq worth the polarization of the American body politic and the long term harm it may cause our democratic system at home? Is 51% or 48% or 37% public support enough to support a foreign war? At what point do policymakers need to question their operating rationale for a war when the public is so divided?

Our choices are not at all attractive here. Pulling out now will certainly destabilize Iraq in the short term and no doubt hasten a civil war. Pulling out later will cost more American lives, and even though it may prolong the slide into civil war, will ultimately end in civil war with American forces caught in the middle. The stark calculation that needs to be made is the cost of American lives and credibility on the one hand versus the cost of a civil war in Iraq. I wish we were faced with an easier choice.

All this without even considering our inadvertant strengthening of Iran by our intervention in Iraq. Once we get past the "when to pull out" argument, we must clearly address how we go about dealing with a more powerful Iran in the region.